MacArthur Fellows in Virginia

Two Virginians were recently recognized as MacArthur Fellows. They are Marc Edwards, Charles P. Lunsford Professor, Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering at VA Tech, and Corey Harris, blues musician from Charlottesville.

Presentations, Zen

Garr Reynolds of Presentation Zen offers Swedish doctor and researcher Hans Rosling as one of the masters of displaying data in live talks. Reynold's Play the Music has several short videos and comments on the components of Rosling's incredibly effective presentation at TED 2007.

Not Every Nobel is a Prize

According to the NY Times,

Michael Nobel, who is indeed Alfred’s great grand nephew, approached [the organizers of NanoTX’07] about announcing a new prize for advances in alternative energy. He wanted to be the featured speaker at a reception meant to honor the surviving members of the team of scientists who won the 1996 Nobel Prize for chemistry for the buckyball. ... [However] the organizers received a disturbing fax from The Nobel Foundation in Sweden. It advised them that Mr. Nobel had been voted out as head of the Nobel Family Society at a meeting in August of 2006 “mainly because of his unauthorized activities and involvements in the name of the Nobel Family Society.”

The original press release, a more current one, and comments from the Nanotechnology Law Report.

NextFest 2007 Notes

Wired NextFest 2007 wrapped up this weekend.

Brian Lam's list of the best of the Fest is at Gizmodo; Molly Wood's video is at c|net news; Phuong-Cac Nguyen has a great summary of new gadgets at Cool Hunting; and Brian Heater has a running commentary at GearLog.

Passive/Aggressive Launches

The new blog, Passive/Aggressive Notes, is a display of passive-aggressive notes among roommates, neighbors, coworkers and strangers. Launched in May, the notes already elicit nearly 100 comments each.

They've used Google Analytics to see what search strings actually bring visitors to the site, and here are the results, which include "how do you spell tennant", "things to do with cookie dough","should nanny sleep on the job?" and "what will the weather be like for the rest of july in saskatchewan?"

Graham's Advice to Startups

Paul Graham has some very straight-forward advice for entrepreneurs in startups: Don't Die.

In his words, "The odds of getting from launch to liquidity without some kind of disaster happening are one in a thousand. So don't get demoralized [when the disaster happens]."

He goes on to say that founders seem to succeed when they do cannot fail publicly; "One of the most interesting things we've discovered from working on Y Combinator is that founders are more motivated by the fear of looking bad than by the hope of getting millions of dollars."

His advice: Stay in touch with the investors and with other startup entrepreneurs, and try to make something that at least someone really loves. The number one thing not to do is other things. Distraction is fatal to startups.

Graham points to Octopart and its founders as examples, noting that the publicity they have received makes it nearly impossible to fail now. Welcome to Help, which launched the end of August, may be another example. (They are hosts for the current CotC)

After not dying, entrepreneurs may want to consider this advice from A VC, to "hire someone who knows about cash flow forecasting, gaap accounting, bank lines, collecting revenues, and managing your dwindling cash balances" in order to get through ugly adolescence.

Sermo with Doctors

Joshua Porter of Bokardo points to the physicians' network, Sermo, as one of the new specialized social networks online. According to the Sermo site, the business model "is one of information arbitrage, the opportunity that arises when breaking medical insights intersect with the demand for actionable, market-changing events in healthcare" and "Sermo technology is the first of its kind to authenticate and credential physicians in real-time. Our state-of-the-art technology is working behind the scenes, re-validating physicians every time they sign in..."

For example, Sermo Inc. of Cambridge, Mass., generally charges $100,000 to $150,000 a year to nonmedical businesses like hedge funds, which use it to research such things as how doctors feel about new drugs. The site, founded by Daniel Palestrant while he was a surgical resident in Boston [was] launched last year... Snippets from the Wall Street Journal

Sermo partners with the American Medical Association, the University of Pennsylvania’s Center for Bioethics, the University of Michigan's School of Information Science, and Northwestern University. "By collaborating with Sermo, these partners have accessed a new research tool, opening the door to more efficient research, and increased opportunities for grant funding and research publications."

Bus 2.0 Disruptor List

Business 2.0 recently identified 10 businesses with the potential to rewrite the rules of existing industries or open up entirely new markets.

Here's their list of the The Next Disruptors :

Bloom Energy wants to short-circuit electric utilities by building a power plant in every home. Zink is trying to create a market for mobile printing, without the ink. Blinkx thinks it can become the Google of video. Virgin Charter is helping to launch the air-taxi industry. Expensr is a webtop application for managing personal finances. Zipcar sprinkles its rental cars throughout urban neighborhoods with the densest populations and lets people book online by the hour. Raydiance has developed the world’s first fully software-controlled, desktop-size USP laser that cuts without heating surrounding material. MFG.COM is an online exchange for the manufacturing industry. PatientsLikeMe is an online community where patients can discuss and track medical conditions. Vanu uses software that allows mobile networks to accommodate devices with different standards.

Firefox - Campus Edition

The folks at EduGeek Journal note the new Firefox Campus Edition, with Foxy Tunes, Zotero and Stumbleupon already installed. It is still free from Mozilla, "the public benefit organization dedicated to improving the internet experience for people everywhere".